The only other objects that seemed remarkable in Lenihan's gloomy quarters were a complete four-volume set of Morris Gerber's Old Albany, uninscribed and otherwise unmarked, and a battered RCA LP called "Opera for People Who Hate Opera." The other books were paperback best-sellers-Ludlum, Higgins, MacLean. Stacked up next to the discount-store stereo setup were thirty or forty 1960s rock
LPs-the Dead, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, the Stones. I found no narcotics, no "fortune," and no clue suggesting that the occupant of this sorry little hole-in-the-wall had had recent possession of either.
I drove west on back streets, found an unoccupied snowbank on Jay, pulled up along it, and walked around to Annie's Quiche Quorner. With the state offices shut down the place wasn't busy during the lunch hour, so I was able to question Annie and her two waiters.
Once it was established that I was neither a health inspector nor a cop Bowman had called on Annie earlier and left a poor impression-they talked a little, but only to say they knew little of Jack Lenihan's personal life, were horrified by his dying, and couldn't imagine what kind of mess he might have gotten into that ended in his being killed. I asked if Lenihan might have been dealing drugs, and Annie, an immense sloe-eyed woman in black pants, said, "I wouldn't know about that."
The two waiters-who, like nearly everybody else on jazzy Lark Street, appeared to be twenty-five and not wasting a minute of it-looked at each other.
"He got me some hash once," one of them said.
"Was it any good?"
"The best."
"Did he say where he got it?"
"Shit, no. And I didn't ask."
"Mister," Annie said, "within a hundred yards of where you're sitting you could probably find two hundred people who could get you any type of controlled substance your heart desires. Stand out on the sidewalk and hold up a sign that you want drugs and they'll crawl right up out of the manholes. Jack probably just walked around the corner and asked anybody on the street. That doesn't make him a criminal."
"Did Jack have visitors here?" I asked.
"There were a couple people who came in who knew him," Annie said. "Neighborhood people, people he knew, I dunno. He didn't seem to have any real friends, not that came in here. Jack was nice, but he was a loner, I'd say."
"What about that guy last Friday," one of the waiters said, "who kept looking for Jack?"
"Oh, yeah, that spiffy one," Annie said, remembering. "He came in a couple of times asking for Jack when he wasn't here- Jack was mostly working nights. This guy looked more like lower State Street than Lark-La Serre or the Fort Orange Club. Good-looking older fella with an alpaca topcoat and a fifty-dollar haircut. I thought I'd seen his face before, but I couldn't place it.
In the movies or somewhere."
"Did he mention why he was looking for Jack?"
"He didn't say. He sure was anxious to track him down, though-came by later the same day and said Jack wasn't home, he'd tried his apartment. I told him Jack had the weekend off and didn't say where he'd be. The guy seemed real itchy to get in touch."
"Did he leave his name or any other message?"
"Unh-unh."
"Has he come back at all?"
"Nope. Hey, you said you're a private detective. Who are you working for anyway, Jack's family?".
"No, did he talk about them?"
"Not a word. I was amazed when I saw in the paper Jack was Pug Lenihan's grandson. A historical family, he came from, and Jack never let on."
"Did Jack mention any sort of project he was working on?"
"Project? What kind?"
"Any kind."
"If Jack had a project I think it went on inside his head. I always had the feeling there was an awful lot going on in there the rest of us were never gonna hear about. Jack came to work for me last October, and he looked like he had a lot on his mind when he got here and he looked like he had a lot on his mind the last time he left. Three months is a long time to be wrapped up in your thoughts like that. I'd've had a headache myself. Maybe it was some kind of family thing or project, is that what you mean? I know Jack was close to his mom. He was just back from seeing her in California when he started here last fall. Maybe she knows more about his private life.
Maybe you should talk to her."
"You're right. Maybe I should."
I had four eggs with sausage and home fries, and then Annie let me use the phone to call my service, which had four messages, all "urgent." Three were from Creighton Prell, Larry Dooley, and Sim Kempelman, each of whom had left a number and asked that I call back as soon as possible regarding a matter of the utmost importance. The fourth was from an unnamed caller who said the "delivery" should take place that night at midnight at the corner of Clinton and South Pearl, and that there would be
"no hassle."
"If the mysterious one calls back," I told the service's operator, "tell him to leave a number where he can be reached, that I'm willing to talk about it."
Next I phoned Alex at American Airlines.
"I'm awfully busy, Don. We had to cancel two flights last night on account of the storm, and I'm up to here with people who'll die if they don't get to Chicago, though God knows why."
'"When you've got a free minute, I need dates and times on an October trip that John C. Lenihan took to LA and back."
"When in October?"
"Right, when in October?"
"I mean, early, late, what?"
"I'm not sure. Early to mid, I think."
"Do you realize that could take me two hours? It's one thing to violate FAA regulations, something else to stay late doing it. Like I say, we've got problems out here."
"So you'll miss 'One Hundred Thousand Dollar Name
That Tune' this evening. Listen, I'll buy you a Molson next time I run into you on the avenue."
He fumed amiably for another minute before we struck a deaclass="underline" two Molsons and a plate of the peppered beef with black mushrooms at the Peking in return for the flight information. Airlines never give you anything without a lot of conditions attached.
The thermometer in Annie's doorway read eleven degrees Fahrenheit, but the wind speed had dropped, so I donned my shades against the glare and pretended I was at St. Kitts on an off day.
"You lied to me, Strachey, you bald-faced lied. You acted like you didn't even know who Lenihan was, which made me suspicious right away, because it wasn't like whoever killed Jack Lenihan dumped him in just any citizen's car. No, it had to be yours, and you put on your 'What? Who, me?' innocent bullshit performance like you're goddamn Mother McRae."
"Carmen?"
"You're up to your pouf eyeballs in this thing, Strachey. You know it and I know it, and now I am going to hear all about it-how, and why, and what for, and no more bullshit-horseshit-crap out of you, or believe me, you are not going to walk out of this building today. I'll see to that."
Bowman still had his hideous nose disease. This might have affected his outlook, which never had been sunny, though I had seen him less fatuously airheaded on one or two previous occasions. As he spoke, Bowman's hand kept coming up toward his nose, but apparently he had been instructed to avoid scratching the gruesome appendage, because the hand always made a quick frightened detour of his face, then went restlessly back to his lap or over to his desktop, where it fingered what looked like a glass of iced prune juice.
I said, "Are you finished venting? May Harrisburg residents return to their homes now?"
"Of course not, no. Now then, Strachey. Last night I thoroughly examined Jack Lenihan's apartment. The place had already been tossed real good by somebody who got there first. It was you, wasn't it?"
"No."
"I thought probably it wasn't. You know why? Because in amongst Lenihan's effects I found this."